Articular Cartilage Repair of the Pediatric and Adolescent Knee with Regard to Minimal Clinically Important Difference: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objective To perform a systematic review of clinical outcomes following microfracture (MFX), autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI), osteochondral allograft transplantation (OCA), and osteochondral autograft transplantation system (OATS) to treat articular cartilage lesions in pediatric and adolescent patients. We sought to compare postoperative improvements for each cartilage repair method to minimal clinically important difference (MCID) thresholds. Design MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane Library databases were searched for studies reporting MCID-validated outcome scores in a minimum of 5 patients ≤19 years treated for symptomatic knee chondral lesions with minimum 1-year follow-up. One-sample t tests were used to compare mean outcome score improvements to established MCID thresholds. Results Twelve studies reporting clinical outcomes on a total of 330 patients following cartilage repair were identified. The mean age of patients ranged from 13.7 to 16.7 years and the mean follow-up was 2.2 to 9.6 years. Six studies reported on ACI, 4 studies reported on MFX, 2 studies reported on OATS, and 1 study reported on OCA. ACI ( P < 0.001, P = 0.008) and OCA ( P < 0.001) showed significant improvement for International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) scores with regard to MCID while MFX ( P = 0.66) and OATS ( P = 0.11) did not. ACI ( P < 0.001) and OATS ( P = 0.010) both showed significant improvement above MCID thresholds for Lysholm scores. MFX ( P = 0.002) showed visual analog scale (VAS) pain score improvement above MCID threshold while ACI ( P = 0.037, P = 0.070) was equivocal. Conclusions Outcomes data on cartilage repair in the pediatric and adolescent knee are limited. This review demonstrates that all available procedures provide postoperative improvement above published MCID thresholds for at least one reported clinical pain or functional outcome score.